Cavelero Mid High School in Lake Stevens, United States

July 17, 2010 Category: Education, Public Buildings

Located in Lake Stevens, United States, Cavelero Mid High School was designed by NAC Architecture. The primary goal of the building was to promote student / instructor interaction in an integrated learning environment while preserving the ability to adapt the school to emerging and changing pedagogies. Focused on the future, Cavelero Mid High School classrooms are grouped into four personalised learning centers (PLC), each serving 375 students. Each PLC contains a two-storey shared learning core that serves as a small and large group learning space serving the connected math, science, language and social studies classrooms. Support functions, multi-use, art and science labs are integrated into each PLC. The school, now serving a total of 1,500 8th and 9th graders, will eventually become a high school.

To meet the District’s goal of a more personal education, while still maintaining adaptability, the building was designed with an open steel structural system with limited bearing walls. PLC’s can be used inter-changeably by separate grade levels, departments, program focused centers, integrated learning centers, or “schools within a school.” Satellite administration centers are near the PLC’s to promote and facilitate easy access to student focused needs, regardless of the educational delivery method in use.

The learning experience is physically enhanced through the use of a displacement ventilation system, using natural convection and no recirculation of indoor air, virtually eliminating contaminants. There is extensive use of clerestory windows with large expanses of interior glazing to promote transparency and observability, while allowing daylight to be borrowed into interior spaces. Sound reinforcement is in all academic spaces to ensure the instructor can be heard. The goal of Cavelero Mid High is not to predict the future, but rather to accommodate it.

Cavelero Mid High School Design by NAC Architecture